


Pomegranate

by Anyawen



Series: Mythology tales [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 007 Fest 2020, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, but he won't take it, choices and choosing, do not copy to another site, informed choice, q knows what he wants, team00
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:01:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25055875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anyawen/pseuds/Anyawen
Summary: Q offers Bond a choice.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Series: Mythology tales [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1814737
Comments: 16
Kudos: 65





	Pomegranate

**Author's Note:**

> Fills the free space (mythology) on the 2020 007 fest AU prompt table.

Q rules the underworld of tunnels that make up Q-branch. His is the domain of research and development, engineering and design, code, and technology, located below London - offices and labs always bright, but never warm. Surrounded by minions who build the equipment he devises, to further the goals of Vauxhall-on-High, he lives an isolated life. He hardly knows it, immersed as he is in his work.

Pale and ethereal, physically slight, his hazel green eyes are weak, and yet he sees everything. There is power in seeing. In discovering weaknesses to exploit. In finding secret paths to follow. The cameras and wires create a web of connections allowing him to guide and direct from his well-lit, subterranean realm. 

He sees the golden agent, and he realizes his own loneliness. He monitors assignments, attention always focused on the man. He watches Bond, and he yearns.

Bond is on a mission outside of Paris when things go tits-up. He has been exposed, and the trafficker’s thugs are in pursuit.

With the press of a few keys, Q arranges for a palm-coded gun to be left at a drop he knows Bond favors. He takes the keys to a prototype car and spirits both it and himself out of the Q-branch garage and onto the streets of the upper world. He is briefly back in the underground - and underwater - but then he is in France under the open sky as the sun rises.

The car does not have the resources he needs to track Bond. He makes it work anyway, and heads toward Bond’s location.

When he arrives, Bond has the gun. He is glorious, running and jumping and diving - and sliding into the passenger seat of Q’s car as Q pulls alongside him and throws open the door. He is exhausted, and injured, and magnificent. Q assures Bond that the thugs chasing him - and the trafficker behind them - will be dealt with, as he speeds them away back to London. He issues the necessary commands while Bond sleeps through the return journey under the water.

By the time Bond wakes, Q has returned them to the parking garage under Vauxhall on high. He helps the golden agent from the car and through the tunnels into the heart of his domain. Bond appears bemused by the assistance, but accepts the arm around his waist and stumbles into the white, unnatural brightness of Q-branch.

Q keeps one eye on the screens around the room, reading the scrolling code and streaming images in the blink of an eye. The men who had given chase are no more, and the man behind them is in custody. As yet, the powers-that-be have not noticed his direct involvement, nor Bond’s removal from the scene. They’re used to the agent’s disappearing acts. They will wonder, though. Eventually.

Q muses over this as he monitors his branch and the various readouts, but the majority of his attention is on treating and soothing Bond’s wounds. The bruises are deep, but there are no broken bones. The lacerations are long, but shallow. The supplies in the branch medkit - along with food, water, and rest - will suffice. He applies the bandages with gentle touches and snarky banter, offers refreshments with fond exasperation, and guides the agent to the couch in his office.

Q is sitting in the shadows, gazing at Bond, when the agent awakens. The windows of his office, turned opaque for privacy, offer a muted glow to illuminate the space.

They will come for him, Q says. They will take him back to the world above, to rejoin the fight. The cause is right. It is just. Q, himself, is dedicated to it. But, he says, he labors alone. He lacks a companion. He desires a companion.

He desires Bond. He wishes to keep him, though he knows better than to try to keep him against his will. He will not employ trickery. He will not offer gifts or bribes - not even the exploding pen he knows Bond covets. Q outfits all of Vauxhall and its agents with equipment to help them in their assignments. He cannot in good conscience create a tool for Bond that he does not provide to the others. 

All he has to offer is himself.

He warns Bond that acceptance of his offer comes with a price.

He explains that there had been a project. A tracking system, much desired by politicians, that Q had refused to implement. Vauxhall’s agents give themselves to their work, their lives coin to be spent to protect its interests, and its citizens. The proposed tracking system would have been impossible to remove, and would have invaded the few private moments agents might have between missions. Q understood the reasons behind the concept of smart blood, but as he designed and built the program, he’d worried about the ethics of spying on the agents outside of work.

Q had completed the project, but had recommended against implementing it. When the politicians associated with Vauxhall-on-High had tried to insist, he’d refused. He would not force the agents to surrender what little privacy they have.

Q had reported the program deleted and the prototype destroyed. It had been destroyed. Except for one sample.

If Bond accepts Q’s offer - accepts Q - injecting the one remaining sample would allow Q constant access to his location, his vital signs, and at some level, to his state of mind. It would tie him to Q, giving him the ability to follow Bond, always, in person or otherwise.

The choice is Bond’s to make. He must decide if he is willing to give himself, and his privacy, to Q, and to accept Q, and the security he offers in return.

Q asks Bond, then, if he will consent to being kept.

To having a home, and a reason to return, and Q’s watchful presence, always ready to come to his side and fight with him, or for him, if required.

To being loved.

Bond smiles, and rolls up his sleeve.


End file.
